


Fixing What's Wrong

by Katiehh



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, alternative ending, post Time of the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2186079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katiehh/pseuds/Katiehh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When The Doctor is facing his own mortality, he considers how to fix some things. Alternative ending to 'The Time of The Doctor'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixing What's Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. So this is the first piece of fan fiction I've ever finished. It's not a masterpiece but I'm proud so I'm gonna leave it here. Just a thing I've been working on since Time of The Doctor because it's a travesty that there was no River

  When you are stuck on a planet with a few hundred years to kill, you get good at tinkering. Well maybe not good at it, but you catch up on the things you've been meaning to do. You know, trying to fix a cyber head, installing updates to your sonic. You know the usual. Especially when you think it's the last thing you are going to do. I lived a long life. I did the best I could. I made plenty of mistakes but I saved a fare few species and planets. So on balance a good life.

    But you start making plans too. With my regeneration all used, I had so many things I needed to do before the time came. Well, okay maybe not so many... Maybe just a few... Okay there was one thing. But it required a lot of tinkering with my sonic so it's a good job really that I have some time to kill. I have to protect Chrismas until I figure out how to get Gallifrey back without restarting the Time War. Hopefully with enough time to spare to make one last trip to right a big mistake I made.

    I had the groundwork in place long before I left for Trenzalore. I had been working on the idea really since the Pond's left me in New York. After once again well and truly screwing over River Song. My hot space lady. Every time I see her, she always makes some enormous sacrifice for me. And how have I repaid her. I got her killed. I got her kidnapped as a child and raised as some sort of psychopath. I got took all her regeneration. I got her parents time locked. Blimey I didn't even marry her properly. I had some ideas on how to try and make it right but never really the time to do anything about it. But now, here with no way out and long periods of quiet I could actually execute them without distraction. However I did require my TARDIS back and she is taking an awfully long time

 

    Okay, now I understand why my TARDIS is took such a long time. How is she supposed to reach me when I tell her when she is carrying an unexpected passenger. Not that I'm not happy to see Clara, buts she's so damn stubborn that she couldn't just stay where she was safe. Now I've got to worry about making suet she gets home safe before I can go to her. I can set up emergency protocols to make sure that she gets back to her time, but I don't want her to see me die. That's just not fair. After everything she's already seen by getting into my time stream, does she really need to see the end of it all too?

    Standing on that rooftop, surrounded by Daleks, watching this happy little town where people told the truth and knew that it was cool to be not cool, I wasn't even angry. I was resentful. I had lost so much to the Daleks already. They have killed so many people I hold dear and right now I am stood here as an old man waiting for them to stop talking long enough so they can JUST SHOOT ME. Just kill me. I am much too old to do what I need to. And no one was going to get at this crack. But I thought this once I'd done the right thing. I stayed. I protected these people. I kept my own hidden. I thought that maybe this once things might work in my favour and I could have what I wanted. But no. No good deed goes unpunished so now I was stuck on the roof of a barn. No escape. No plan. No regenerations. With every foe I'd ever faced breathing down my neck, waiting for me to kick the metaphorical bucket, to attempt to get at a crack which they couldn't assess without me.

    "I'm sorry" I whispered over and over like some sort of mantra. I knew she wouldn't hear me. But she'd know. My wonderful River. She always knew.

    I was as surprised as anyone when I was flushed with regenerative energy. I was never the Timelord's favourite. I stole a TARDIS. I broke every rule. I got them time locked. I mean it hurt like hell. Every molecule of my existence was dying and being re-written. It also itches like hell. It's like when you get a scab and it's healing and all you wanna do is scratch it off but you know that if you do then it's gonna leave a scar but that's not really important. But there was a relief too. I would definitely get my chance to dash to The Library one last time.

    Once the Daleks were dealt with, I raced back to the TARDIS. Miraculously I beat Clara there. I shoved the sonic into the console and plotted the coordinates. Well, tried to. Regeneration is a tricky business but I knew the old girl would get me where I needed to go this time even if I couldn't. One quick jaunt to The Library then pick Clara up and take her home.

    I knew when I landed the Vashta Nerada would still be floating around but A) it was still within the day which I'd made them give to evacuate the people and B) I was in the middle of a regeneration so stripping my flesh was probably not a big deal since I was just growing more. I still ran. I ran with with more coordination and speed than this body had ever exhibited. I honestly don't think I'd ran for this long without running into something or tripping over my feet.

    The empty library was very surreal. All the corridors were virtually identical. It was like running through a hotel (did that once, not such a bad day) where you keep going forward but the end never seems to get any closer. Getting to CAL seemed to take so long. To be honest I don't know why I didn't just land closer, bug the running seemed to give it more gravitas. Once I got there, all it would take was a couple of zaps with the sonic and I would be back before Clara knew I was gone. Then all my memories from when I met River to leaving Christmas would be taken and saved here. I'd left enough so that I could face Clara and answer her questions but everything else would be here. For River. All it would take was this upload to put right the huge mistake of leaving her here in the first place.

    I never checked up on her here. I could bear it. It hurt more than any regeneration. My River, professor of archeology, with a side job of travelling the universe and yelling at Sontarans would hate it here. The calm. The perfect. The lack of guns. But I was young and foolish. I didn't know her any better. I thought that any life was better than no life even if it was only half of one. But she had lived so much more than anyone I had ever met. She didn't need some half form existence in binary. I didn't know that then.

    I need to stop stalling. I can be sentimental later. Like Amy said when I get emotional I make mistakes and right now I can't afford to do that. I light up the sonic. The first whirring sound lighting up the computer screens. The second, disabling the alarms that were still in place. The third, granting me access to the mainframe. Next the somewhat fiddly job of hooking the sonic to the computer. Thankfully the wires were still pretty much perfectly set up from the last time I did this. All it would take is one last burst from the sonic to upload myself.

    The whole experience was a bit..... You know... Well, wobbly. Between rewriting my physical form in the real world and uploading my mental form to this virtual one, my brain was a little bit scrambled I think. Well why else would I find myself face down in some well maintained grass when I uploaded myself to a computer? Admittedly it was the most powerful computer that had ever existed, but it felt like real grass, it even tasted like real grass.

   "Hello Doctor, we've been expecting you." Greeted the familiar voice of Charlotte Lux.

  "Please." I begged. "can we do introductions later. I really need to see my wife" I pushed myself to my feet. "I need to see River"

    Charlotte smiled. "She's just upstairs" she said, gesturing towards the elaborate manor behind her. "Just think about going upstairs and you'll be there"

    So I did. I was instantaneously transported to a room. It must be her bedroom I though, as it looked almost identical to one on the TARDIS. And there she was. After all this time, stood at a wardrobe folding clothes. I almost laughed. After all the crazy things me and River did, I never once expected to ever see her folding clothes. It was the most beautiful sight. She was so content. Her hair, still in the most marvellous golden ringlets, but much longer than I'd ever seen it, cascading down her back. I always loved it when her hair was down. She thought it was impractical but it suited her. The dress too. White and flowing-and- if I'm being perfectly honest- complementing all her best assets. I was happy just to stand and watch her for a while. Domestic bliss. Did we have this to look forward too (even if domestic bliss still had a gun holster). I tried to speak up but I couldn't. I was far too captivated by this moment to ruin it.

    So she turned round first- I was surprised by that too. Though she was probably more surprised. I mean her dashing, and very cool, almost husband who until very recently had not been a part of her digital world was now stood in front of her. The hugest smile overwhelmed her face, although her eyes pricked with tears (I guess she knew what it meant if I was here). So I did the only reasonable thing- I made a bit of a scene

"Honey, I'm home." I joked, my eyes also beginning to steam with tears. She began to walk over to me, reaching out to fix my bow-tie.

"And what sort of time do you call this?"


End file.
